Broadband sensitive pump-probe setup for ultrafast optical switching of photonic nanostructures and semiconductors

Abstract

We describe an ultrafast time resolved pump-probe spectroscopy setup aimed at studying the switching of nanophotonic structures. Both fs pump and probe pulses can be independently tuned over broad frequency range between 3850 and 21050 cm${}^{-1}$. A broad pump scan range allows a large optical penetration depth, while a broad probe scan range is crucial to study strongly photonic crystals. A new data acquisition method allows for sensitive pump-probe measurements, and corrects for fluctuations in probe intensity and pump stray light. We observe a tenfold improvement of the precision of the setup compared to laser fluctuations, allowing a measurement accuracy of better than $\Delta$R= 0.07% in a 1 s measurement time. Demonstrations of the improved technique are presented for a bulk Si wafer, a 3D Si inverse opal photonic bandgap crystal, and z-scan measurements of the two-photon absorption coefficient of Si, GaAs, and the three-photon absorption coefficient of GaP in the infrared wavelength range.

31 pages, 15 figures

References in corpus (6)

• Ultra Fast Nonlinear Optical Tuning of Photonic Crystal Cavities
• Spatial homogeneity of optically switched semiconductor photonic crystals and of bulk semiconductors
• Dynamical ultrafast all-optical switching of planar GaAs/AlAs photonic microcavities
• All-optical octave-broad ultrafast switching of Si woodpile photonic band gap crystals
• Ultrafast optical switching of three-dimensional Si inverse opal photonic band gap crystals
• Identification of competing ultrafast all-optical switching mechanisms in Si woodpile photonic crystals

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Ultimate fast optical switching of a planar microcavity in the telecom wavelength range
• Differential ultrafast all-optical switching of the resonances of a micropillar cavity
• Competition between electronic Kerr and free carrier effects in an ultimate-fast optically switched semiconductor microcavity
• Observation of a stronger-than-adiabatic change of light trapped in an ultrafast switched GaAs-AlAs microcavity
• Generation of ultrashort (~10ps) spontaneous emission pulses by quantum dots in a switched optical microcavity
• Optimal all-optical switching of a microcavity resonance in the telecom range using the electronic Kerr effect
• Resolving features and derivatives in noisy data using weighted Whittaker-Henderson smoothing